The Brighton Project: Bloom or Bust?
The Debrief dives into the evolution of the Brighton project - will it remain highly profitable off the pitch with strong results on the pitch?
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hello I'm Angus Scott and this is the debrief live what has happened at Brighton over the past two decades or so is a minor miracle homeless after the sale of the Goldstone ground in 1997 languishing in the lower leagues and for years getting through managers quicker than the Tories do their leaders however they are now a success story to rival any club playing European football for the first time even challenging the top four for a Champions League spot but on a tiny budget compared to the big six and with a transfer policy the Envy of most of the Premier League Moises kaiso bought for £4 A5 million pound sold for 110 Alexis McAllister bought for 7 million sold for 35 No Club in Europe made a bigger profit from transfer business than Brighton in the summer yet they are still in the top six in the league Ben Jacobs is here as ever as financially astute as Tony Bloom I don't know about that but what I do know is that Brighton are winning hearts and minds and have done for a while so can they do what my team have done and go on to win the Premier League we shall see well that is another question Ben because there is another side to that coin as you well know but we'll discuss that in a bit of course for Brito Romano will be here in a minute to let us know a little bit more about how bright and go about their business all the transfer prospects are on their way but also with us are two journalists who really know how the club operates firstly documentary maker Matt Lorenzo Now Matt has spent the last two years or so behind the scenes at the AMX making his soon Tobe released documentary stand or fall for Sky it's still Ono mat but you've had an interesting couple of years there yes I'm not sure it'll ever finished the trouble with it is that they keep winning so you don't know when to end it um well a reasonable end yeah I yeah well I think that would be quite a good ending otherwise you'd go on forever also joined by Johnny Canter who's the BBC's local Brighton man who's certainly enjoying Brighton's first Venture into Europe because he got to go to Mars this week not bad is it it makes a little bit of a change from some of the clubs where I went to uh 15 years ago but no disrespect to Alder and Rochdale and the like but uh it was certainly nice to to go to the south of France I actually did say I'm keep waiting for Matt's doc vent but they keep sort of venturing into new territory so he has to probably keep updating it that's right well you got there you got there on time Johnny unlike some of the supporters there this week yeah that's right one of the uh planes that was coming over was delayed it had a certain Tony Bloom on the plane as well it was delayed by about three hours um but um just as they were trying to sort of sort themselves out and obviously they bit of concerned about whether they would make kickoff you know over the tanoy goes you know bing bing and then you're expecting to hear the pilot but no it's the chairman um who is explaining to the fans that they'd actually arranged for coaches to be brought directly to the airport to try and uh limit the delay and bring their their tickets with them so that they could actually give them to them uh and try and process it a little bit quicker to see if they could make it I think they were around 20 minutes 25 minutes late for the game in the end but um maybe just a small window into the mind of the attention to detail that the owner and the club take towards their fans yeah I think the players were about 20 minutes late as well to that g Matt Matt look you that that attention to detail is that something you have noticed as as you've wandered the corridors of of the AMX and being behind the scenes with the club yes there professional is the right word they're a a really professionally Run outfit but not to the um at the expense of just good humor and warmth I mean J you know far best than I but you know from from the the top top down the bottom up everybody there's is really approachable and you get quite a warm feeling when he goes to Brighton um and yeah I I haven't got anything by compliments for a bit boring isn't it really but there you go what sort of a character for you uh Matt is Tony Bloom uh well I've only met him a couple of times um I think he's a very friendly nice man uh obviously super intelligent so we haven't got much in common uh I've interviewed him one a couple of times um he's he's quite guarded about his uh business life um I would be if I was making that much money he's obviously got some sort of secret he doesn't wish to share with the likes of me but his his his work in the football club is just amazing really um I I laugh about Chelsea they keep giving him all this money for his players why don't they just buy him that would turn the club around instantaneously looking at what what you see every every every day every every week Johnny um that attention to detail that that's different way of doing things that that Tony Bloom Works yes I think so I think we must remember always that he's a fan you know and he supported the club since he was probably seven eight years old and that means that he has slightly different connection to the club than maybe some owners particularly in the Premier League at the moment um and that that shines through but also I think he's um he's very loyal um I think you know he he likes that kindness that warmth that Matt was talking about um but also he's got a business brain as well so I think that balance is the perfect balance really for for running it as a business but also those links to the community that they have whether it be his investment into women's football um into disability football um you know lots of different areas within the the city as well so he's never ever forgotten his roots of course his grandfather was a board director in the times of Mike Bamber a long time AG ago this sort of crazy sort of flamboyant character who ran the club um when they were last in the top flight so um there's that link as well and I think that never goes away you never ever see you know you always see that but I mean I've been in fans forums that I've do each year with him um and he's brilliant um he answers any question you ask him but also he acts upon it as well if someone brings up a topic you know I went remember one year I went to ask him say thank you very much for your time and he said just hold on a second I've just got to sort something that came up there he immediately wants to improve things always looking to better the club always looking to get the right people in place but also I would say that he empowers people as well he gives people an opportunity to grow within um a role I mean you look at the role that David Wear has now I'm taking over from Dan ashth I mean that was I think potentially a huge blow for them when he went to Newcastle but it's been seamless you know David Wear has come in and and it's as if really Dan Ashworth has has never left but what about Tony Bloomer's sort of Mr algorithm RM as it were just just describe how forensic he is in his research for any sort of part of his business and most specifically Brighton well I mean if it comes down to a player I mean in this weekend we've just seen another two you know already my phone's been going this morning people say you know what about this Carlos baliba and what about Simon ad dingra um where have they come from are they going to be the next Moises kaiso so I think he applies that but obviously he has a background with star lizard his company that's based in North London that that looks at all that you know incredible amount of very sophisticated data that he puts together looks at loads of different types of models has different researchers contacts and he uses them to put into the Melting Pot to find the best decision and make those decisions based on the the best rationale I assume because he gets it you know right more often than he gets it wrong so um I think it's down to anything I mean it doesn't matter whether it's the use of plastic within the stadium or whether it's a 100 million pounds for a player and whether they should sell him he just use seems to have that that Clarity of what exactly what he wants and what he thinks is best for the football club is there a sense Matt I mean you've plot uh you've you've plotted their history all the way from through rack and ruin to to where they are now is there a sense that this is totally driven by Tony Bloom and and his incredible brain and and sophistication of of uh the way he runs the club and if it weren't for him then Brighton wouldn't be where it is now uh I think it's point that Johnny would sure would agree with that it wasn't just Tony Bloom before he happened there was Dick Knight who who got hold of the club at the lowest de if you like when they were went to Herford and no survived stadi in football league by virtue of a draw and it was he that led the campaign from that point onwards to almost the building of the stadium at which point Tony who'd always been a supporter stepped in as you might do with 90 million in quid um to help build the stadium um and as you might do if you put that amount of money and you take over as chairman so I think the two of them deserve credit but what Bloom has done since is just applied the science it's quite remarkable what he's done I asked him do you have did you have a vision do you have a vision that was a dim question because he obviously does and everything that runs through that football club has been analyzed planned seen coming by Tony bloom quite remarkable what goes on inside that head um and you know the credit lies with him and it's not just him it's the people he picks we haven't mentioned Paul Barber yet but he's a fundamental part of their success and everybody along the way and Johnny alluded to it just back then David we comes in how are they going to replace you know um their analytic man you know how can they do this well they just do and they do it at that level they do it on the playing side they do it at manag neral level it's just incredible the way it all flows and it keeps going almost without Hiccup and I'll end in a minute but when big teams like Chelsea ask why can't we do this well the reason they can't is they didn't start 15 years ago uh and you know the vision has been operated upon ever since Ben Matt is is right in in um signaling out um Paul Barber and how important he is to the operation as well yeah and his relationship with Tony Bloom and Paul barar is one of the best in the business and is highly in demand but has no real desire to leave Brighton and I think that tells you everything it's interesting comparing Brighton to Chelsea because obviously it is different models and now Chelsea is a new model and Brighton is an established model with a very specific purpose and what will be interesting in all of this I think Johnny is what happens to the Brighton model with success because we saw Lester get success with a model and in many ways financially speaking it was counterproductive because the success came so fast that everything else had to catch up and they spent very fast and they went into a bit of financial difficulty and ultimately now they've got relegated with Chelsea it's a little bit different because it's a Serial winner mentality from Abramovic into a multiclub model so I think Paul Barber for me is the individual that's the glue at the club because he keeps the model grounded he makes sure it doesn't move too fast he makes sure that the end goal is Europe but not at the expense of any kind of Ruin and when I last spoke to Paul barara he made it very clear to me Johnny that the model wasn't going to change overnight just because Brighton had got European success so I suppose that's my question to you people if they're Brighton fans will want to keep seeing progress how do you balance this Brighton model with the desire to succeed Ed in the Premier League and how important to that is Paul barar he is essential um and a lot of people thought that he probably would leave the club at some point but he stayed maybe longer than people thought and I think that is down to the relationship that he has with Tony Bloom but what I would say as well is that they are very much look at a short mid and long-term strategy and Paul is very good at that he I think he foresees challenges um he knows you know when to make the right decision and that's really really important so um but in terms of I mean a lot of the fans would say you know we have to decide what we want to be as a club but when I spoke to I did an interview with Tony um a few weeks back he said There Are No Ceilings at this football club um he very much feels that but he would never jeopardize the club and I think that pace of progress is so important that he would never want to because of the history of it because of his connection to it he knows what happened previously so I think they'll tread very carefully just keep trying to grow he said a few years back I want to establish ourselves as a top 10 Club he wanted a mission statement he wanted a Target then once we've establish ourselves as a top 10 Club then we want to get into Europe and just those those constant small steps building building but it's always they're realistic they know it's going to be very very difficult to challenge clubs that have revenues far beyond their means yeah and it's an interesting debate and what Ben was hinting at there I think is the fact that you know they they're only one away from a a failure that that leester have um unfortunately had that that you get it wrong and then you try and expand too much and then and then it all goes wrong and you end up um as Leicester are now in the in the championship one thing I would say is that I think and this comes back to Tony's experience um in betting and as a gambler previously as the lizard I think what he does is very much and and Paul Barber is minimize risk so if you've got right people in the right position if you've got a succession planning if you've got the right person to take over from that person you're always minimizing the risk and therefore you're less likely to come a Cropper because whatever happens if something in the machine fails you've always got another way out so other things will be ticking over so you can focus on any particular issue that might come your way because you don't have to worry about the rest of thing because that's all moving smoothly and I think that idea of minimizing risk I'm not a betting man so I don't really know but I would have thought is the way forward and something that maybe is being applied to the club as well well they certainly do things differently and uh they have a different transfer policy it seems the Envy of the world um down at the AMX and a little bit earlier I spoke to fabito Romano with Ben and caught up about that policy uh down at Brighton when you look at the Brighton operating model their transfer dealings is it uh different to most clubs absolutely I think it's absolutely unique what they're doing in general and the idea they have how they sign players how they trust their scouting Department how they involve also the manager in this process I think it's something something absolutely special uh and I can I can tell you that also Roberto Des Zerby when he arrived there he didn't know the system that well because he didn't join the club in the summer you know when you have for example in June in July some time to speak to the club and to take your time to prepare the trans for business but he arrived in September in a completely different situation to replace grahan Potter and I'm told that when he arrived there he understood the system after a couple of weeks and he was like okay this is completely different obviously in a positive way and I think what Brighton are doing is absolutely special so congrats to them but the interesting thing is they go and get someone like Anu fatty on loan that's not the usual Brighton type deal and he suddenly comes in on loan and is the highest paid player in the club yeah this is something surprising but I think it's also true that Brighton are now entering probably another moment of their history they're playing European football they're going to the next uh stage of their of their growth and I think it's also normal to bring in this kind of players because it's important to send also a message to the World Market to sign the number 10 of Barcelona is something really special to to Brighton and something that is going to change their history in terms of transfer market in terms of attracting also other players in the future so I think it was a very clear message from Roberto De Zerby de Zerby loves to work with obviously young players quality players you can find many hidden gems around the world as they're doing but sometimes if you want to play at the highest level in the best competitions you also need someone who knows very well the game in terms of pressure top clubs and also feeling free to follow the manager's ideas in that case Roberto deser made the defense the defense Roberto deser really wanted anati and he was pushing for that deal to happen Okay you talk about those younger players Ferguson is one of those new deal for him but is there a release clause in that deal no at the moment I don't have confirmation on that one then we know that Brighton are very good at hiding things in terms of transfer negotiations but at the moment they're not confirming any uh any clause also because honestly I think they're very quiet and relaxed on the on the even Ferguson situation because they know that obviously many top clubs around the world and especially in England are keeping an eye on that boy but at the same time they want to give him the right time to to make right things to make the right process at Brighton so they're not in a rush at all to to sell the player and I'm not sure that it's going to happen next summer it really depends on the value of the player but after extending his contract the planet Brighton is to keep the player at least for one more season so it's not going to be easy at all for the top clubs to arrive there pay and sign even Ferguson for Brito let's move on to Manchester United Scott Momin scored an astonishing brace in injury time as Manchester United beat brenford at the weekend does that put him in the shop window in January or is there a chance that he could stay at Manchester United I think it could stay honestly I think the situation is going to be exactly the same it was in the summer in the summer May United when they had the first meeting with Eran hack to discuss the summer transfer window they were very clear in making some kind of list of players who had to leave the club on permanent transfer and players who were maybe available on the market only in case they received important proposals otherwise they were very happy to keep lers at the club and Scott Momin was in that list so was like okay if we receive an important proposal we could discuss and let Scott leave otherwise we would be prepared to keep the player at the club and he will be an important player in the rotation and when they received a 30 million pounds proposal from West Ham at the end of July beginning of of August it was not enough to convince Manchester United so it's very clear that they're not going to sell for for that amount and also when fulam arrived in the final hours of the transfer window to replace Joe Pala in that case was the player was Scott mcdom who said no I want to stay at May United and I want to fight for my place so at the moment they're very happy with Scott obviously on the pitch that prce was important but I can guarantee that man united and the coaching staff are very happy with his attitude also in every single training session Momin is super professional super seriou